Mumbai: The Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana (PMKSNY) will benefit 80 per cent (1.20 crore) farmers of the state. Among government employees, only Class 4 workers will benefit from the scheme while pensioners and public representatives have been excluded from the scheme.
The Centre will provide approximately Rs 7,200 crore to the state for the scheme this year. Dinesh Kumar Jain, chief secretary of the state, directed all the district administration to collect farmers' data for the scheme.
Agriculture minister Chandrakant Patil said that the entire amount would be credited to eligible farmers' bank accounts during the whole year.
Interim finance minister Piyush Goyal had announced this scheme in the Interim Budget, which was tabled last week.
The agriculture minister said that a presentation in this connection was given in the recently-concluded Cab-inet meeting. As per prescribed norms of the Centre, the scheme would be implemented in the state and the approval for the same had been given in the meeting. The government will try to ensure that needy farmers would benefit under this scheme.
According to the agriculturalist calculations, there were about 1.25 crore farmers in the state in 2015-16.
